What it does

Replaces the original group activity tool and provides four tabs for it:

1. Activities in the group (as per the default, but with added object type selection option)
2. Group member activities across the site (not just in the group, also with object type selection)
3. Per-member activity stats (with various statistics such as join date, number of posts, first post, last post, etc. Has search filter to cater for larger group sizes)
4. Group stats (number of members, posts per object type, most recent activity, etc)

Site admins can always see the two stats tabs but can choose whether to make them available to others. Group admins can control whether or not the stat tabs are shown to other users. We added this option in case anyone might be worried about privacy, though the tool does not show anything that could not be discovered manually anyway.

Using the plugin

Add it to the mod folder and enable. Note that its directory name is au_group_activity (we try to name all our plugins starting with AU - makes it easier to manage) though it will appear across the site as 'Group Activity Plus'.

Set the defaults: for each of the stats tabs you can choose whether or not they are visible to non-admins, and whether they are switched on or not by default for your sites' groups.

Why we built this

We started writing this because the standard group activity tool does not provide the object filtering of the standard site-wide activity tool (e.g. to show only blog posts, discussion posts, etc). Then, because we use Elgg for some courses and some courses ask students to post things outside the group (or they mistakenly do so anyway), we added an extra tab to show all group members' activity across the site. Because people, especially group owners and site admins, often want to know more about individual members' activities in a group such as when they joined, how much they post, when they last posted, etc, we added a tab for individual member statistics. Finally, we wanted a means to get an overview of the activity in a group, especially so that admins and group admins can monitor how groups develop, so we added a tab for that too. 

Produced for and on behalf of Athabasca University.